Rumor: Nintendo Switch Will Offer GameCube Games On Its Virtual Console, Upgrade Program For Older Systems

The Nintendo Switch was officially announced back in late October after being known as the NX for awhile, with the full reveal set for January 12. In the meantime, we’ve seen plenty of rumors coming out and the latest definitely has us excited.

The Virtual Console was one of the best aspects of the Wii and Wii U, though the slow drip of releases has always been really frustrating. It was also very disappointing that the Wii U never offered GameCube games on the Virtual Console, especially with the release of the Wii U GameCube Adapter for Super Smash Bros., but it sounds like that will be changing with the Switch.

According to Eurogamer’s Tom Phillips, he is hearing from multiple sources that the Nintendo Switch’s Virtual Console will indeed include GameCube games, with supposed support for at least Luigi’s Mansion, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Smash Bros. Melee, with them also testing Animal Crossing. He’s also hearing that they are exploring possibly using the Wii U GameCube adapter for this as well, but that hasn’t been decided.

In addition, Phillips revealed that Nintendo European Research and Development (NERD) is in charge of developing the Virtual Console for the Switch, who recently developed the NES Classic Edition. There were many complaints about the quality of many of the games on the Wii U VC, so having NERD in charge this time is great news.

It also sounds like the Switch will have a similar upgrade system to that of the Wii U where gamers will be able to download games they already own for a fee. There were no details on how much it would cost or if this upgrade program, but it would be assumed to be similar to how it was on Wii U. If it’s more than the few dollars it was on there, Nintendo is really making a bad decision in my eyes.